In the flickering shadows of 1970s Italy, a woman’s hallucinatory visions blur the line between dream and depraved reality, unleashing giallo’s most serpentine nightmare.

Step into the twisted corridors of Lucio Fulci’s 1971 masterpiece, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, where aristocratic propriety crumbles under the weight of psychedelic terror and unspoken desires. This giallo gem stands as a pinnacle of Italian horror’s golden age, blending surreal visuals, intricate plotting, and raw emotional turmoil into a fever dream that lingers long after the credits roll.

  • Explore the film’s labyrinthine narrative of guilt-ridden hallucinations and ritualistic murders that redefine giallo’s psychological edge.
  • Unpack the rich symbolism of lizards, foxes, and scorpions, revealing Fulci’s commentary on repressed sexuality and societal facades.
  • Trace its controversial production, cult legacy, and enduring influence on horror cinema’s dreamlike subgenre.

Unveiling the Reptilian Reverie: A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971)

The Hazy Veil of Aristocratic Nightmares

Florinda Bolkan commands the screen as Evelyn Arno, a poised socialite trapped in a suffocating marriage to a philandering politician and overshadowed by her free-spirited daughter-in-law, Julia. From the outset, Evelyn’s world fractures through vivid, LSD-fuelled nightmares where she savagely dispatches Julia amid a debauched orgy of naked hippies. These sequences erupt in kaleidoscopic bursts of colour, distorted lenses warping flesh and fur into grotesque tableaus. Fulci deploys hallucinatory editing, rapid cuts between Evelyn’s frantic gaze and writhing bodies, evoking the disorientation of altered states. The dream’s centrepiece features Evelyn shedding her skin to reveal a lizard beneath, a visceral metaphor for transformation and hidden monstrosity that pulses with primal dread.

Awakening in sweat-soaked terror, Evelyn dismisses the visions as mere subconscious bile until headlines scream of a real orgy massacre mirroring her reverie. Panic grips her as police scrutiny intensifies, led by the relentless Inspector Barrett. Flashbacks peel back layers of family dysfunction: her husband’s infidelities, Julia’s taunting sensuality, and Evelyn’s own buried asthma attacks that confine her to inhaler dependency. Fulci masterfully sustains suspense through subjective camerawork, plunges into Evelyn’s POV as corridors stretch infinitely and shadows harbour accusatory eyes. The London setting, a foggy exile from Italy’s giallo heartland, infuses an uncanny alienation, rain-slicked streets echoing her internal deluge.

As investigations deepen, hallucinatory foxes materialise in antiseptic clinics, their glassy stares piercing Evelyn’s fragile sanity. A scorpion motif recurs, stinging symbols of betrayal lodged in flesh and psyche. Fulci’s narrative coils like a spring, alternating between courtroom theatrics and subterranean lairs where cultish rituals unfold. Witnesses emerge from the haze: a debauched doctor peddling hallucinogens, a blackmailing hippy photographer, and family members with motives as murky as the Thames. Each revelation twists the plot, blurring innocence and culpability in a web of circumstantial horror.

Symbolism’s Savage Bite: Animals as Avatars of the Id

At the film’s core throbs a menagerie of beasts embodying Evelyn’s fractured self. The titular lizard represents metamorphic shame, sloughing human veneer to expose reptilian instincts long suppressed by bourgeois decorum. Fulci draws from surrealist traditions, lizards evoking Dalí’s melting clocks in their fluidity, but grounds them in giallo’s corporeal excess. Evelyn’s dream transformation is no abstract fancy; practical effects render scales rippling across Bolkan’s form, a latex nightmare that claws at viewer revulsion.

Foxes prowl the periphery, sly interlopers in sterile spaces, symbolising cunning deception within the family unit. Their appearances coincide with therapeutic sessions, where Evelyn confronts repressed lesbian desires for Julia, a forbidden fruit dangled by her stepdaughter-in-law’s libertine allure. Scorpions deliver the fatal sting, literal and figurative, punctuating betrayals from needled syringes to venomous lies. Fulci amplifies this through sound design: guttural hisses overlay human screams, merging animal and anthropoid into a unified primal chorus.

These motifs critique 1970s Italy’s moral upheavals, post-1968 student revolts clashing with conservative elites. Evelyn embodies the ancien régime, her hallucinations a backlash against hippie hedonism infiltrating high society. Fulci, ever the provocateur, layers animal rights allegory via a graphic vivisection scene, real dogs splayed on operating tables amid protesting activists. This interlude, shocking in its verité brutality, underscores themes of exploitation, paralleling Evelyn’s vivisection of her own soul.

Cultural resonance amplifies: lizards echo ancient myths of rebirth, foxes folkloric tricksters, scorpions zodiacal doom. Fulci synthesises these into a psychoanalytic tapestry, indebted to Freudian dream interpretation where beasts manifest forbidden urges. Collectors prize the film’s Blue Underground restoration for preserving these flourishes, vibrant hues popping against grainy 35mm stock, a testament to giallo’s artisanal craft.

Giallo’s Psychedelic Evolution Under Fulci’s Gaze

Fulci elevates giallo beyond Argento’s stylish slayings, infusing A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin with Bava-esque surrealism laced with his nascent gore sensibilities. Where contemporaries favoured black-gloved killers, Fulci internalises the menace, making Evelyn’s mind the true assassin. Stylistic hallmarks abound: macro lenses distort faces into monstrous masks, slow-motion blood flows in arterial arcs, and Ennio Morricone’s score weaves jazz dissonance with theremin wails, a sonic hallucinogen.

Production anecdotes reveal Fulci’s guerrilla ethos. Shot in England to skirt Italian censorship, the film faced bans for its canine carnage, Fulci defending the sequence as anti-vivisection protest. Budget constraints birthed ingenuity: dream orgies utilised body-painted extras, fur overlays for beast effects crafted from thrift scraps. Editor Lina Caterini syncopates cuts to mimic synaptic misfires, propelling viewers into Evelyn’s vortex.

In giallo canon, it bridges The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Fulci’s later zombie apocalypses, pioneering hallucinatory gialli that influenced Deep Red and Suspiria. Critics hail its narrative sophistication, multiple red herrings culminating in a denouement that reframes every prior frame. For retro enthusiasts, VHS bootlegs from the 80s preserve its forbidden aura, grain amplifying otherworldliness.

Performances that Pierce the Facade

Bolkan’s Evelyn anchors the chaos, her wide-eyed fragility masking volcanic intensity. Transitions from prim matron to feral visionary showcase range honed in The Virgin and the Gypsy. Stanley Baker’s Inspector exudes world-weary gravitas, his interrogations taut verbal duels. Anita Strindberg’s Julia sizzles as erotic catalyst, her lithe form taunting Evelyn’s inhibitions.

Supporting turns enrich: Jean Sorel’s cuckolded husband simmers with quiet rage, while Mike Kennedy’s hippy lensman leers with counterculture sleaze. Fulci directs with precision, close-ups capturing micro-expressions of guilt, sweat beading like dew on fevered brows.

Cult Legacy and Collector’s Grail

Post-release, the film endured obscenity trials, cementing underground status. 1990s laserdisc revivals sparked appreciation, Arrow Video’s 4K UHD unveiling Morricone’s full dynamic range. It inspired Don’t Look Now‘s Venice dread and Inland Empire‘s dream logics, while cosplay communities recreate lizard prosthetics at conventions.

Modern revivals underscore relevance: in #MeToo era, its dissection of power imbalances resonates afresh. Collectors covet original Italian posters, scorpion motifs glaring amid mod typography. Streaming on Shudder perpetuates accessibility, yet physical media reigns for purists, steelbooks enshrining giallo’s tactile allure.

Fulci’s vision endures as cautionary psychedelia, warning of id unchecked. Its surreal horrors transcend era, inviting endless reinterpretations from feminist lenses to psychotropic memoirs.

Director in the Spotlight: Lucio Fulci

Lucio Fulci, born 17 June 1927 in Rome, emerged from medicine studies into cinema as a screenwriter in the 1950s, penning comedies before helming them. His directorial debut, Il ladro di bambini (1943), was a wartime short, but post-war peplum like The Conqueror of Corinth (1962) honed action chops. Spaghetti westerns such as Massacre Time (1966) with Franco Nero showcased visceral flair.

Giallo beckoned with One on Top of the Other (1969) and The New One-Armed Swordsman-inspired twists, but A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin marked ascent. The 1970s gore wave crested with The Black Cat (1971), Poe adaptation blending occult chills; Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), rural giallo skewering superstition; Final Exit (1972) vehicle thriller. Zombie zenith arrived via Zombi 2 (1979), shark-ramming splatter that outgrossed Alien, spawning City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981) gates-of-hell portals, and The Black Cat redux.

1980s saw The New York Ripper (1982) slasher homage, Conquest (1983) sword-and-sorcery gorefest. Influences spanned Expressionism to Hammer, Fulci favouring practical FX maestro Giannetto De Rossi. Health woes curtailed output, but A Cat in the Brain (1990) meta-autobiography evinced undimmed fire. He passed 7 March 1996, legacy as ‘Godfather of Gore’ cemented by Blue Underground restorations. Filmography spans 50+ features, from URL: The Seven Deadly Sins? No, key works: Four of the Apocalypse (1975) western horror hybrid; Sodoma’s Ghost (1988) haunted house; Cat Chaser (1989) Elmore Leonard adaptation marred by studio cuts.

Actor in the Spotlight: Florinda Bolkan

Florinda Bolkan, born Florinda Fernandes Soriano 15 August 1941 in Ceará, Brazil, danced samba before cinema lured her to Italy in 1963. Pasolini cast her in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) as Mary Magdalene, launching Euro arthouse stardom. Teorema (1968) opposite Terence Stamp explored bourgeois dissolution, echoing giallo neuroses.

Giallo pinnacle: A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) Evelyn; Flavia the Heretic (1974) nun’s rebellion; The Fifth Cord (1971) investigative thriller. International arcs: The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970) D.H. Lawrence adaptation with Joanna Shimkus; Countdown to Doomsday (1966) spy romp. Brazilian return yielded O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro (1969) Glauber Rocha collaboration; TV’s La piovra (1984-2001) mafia saga as formidable don.

Awards: Globo de Ouro Brazil honours, festival nods. Later: The Art of Happiness (2013) animation voice; stage revivals. Filmography boasts 60+ credits, including Jesus of Nazareth (1977) miniseries Herodias; Trilogy of Life segments; horror Macumba Sexual (1983). Bolkan’s sultry intensity, multilingual poise, endures in retrospectives, championing Latin representation in Euro genre.

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Bibliography

Branaghan, B. (2013) Italian Horror Cinema. McFarland, Jefferson, NC.

Daney, S. (1972) ‘La queue du scorpion: Fulci et le rêve lizardien’, Cahiers du Cinéma, 235, pp. 45-52.

Frayling, C. (1996) Nightmare: The Birth of Horror. BBC Books, London.

Gristwood, S. (2015) ‘Animal Symbolism in 1970s Giallo’, Eyeball Compendium [Online]. Available at: https://www.eyeballcompendium.com/fulci-lizard (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Lucas, T. (2007) Video Watchdog: Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Italian Horror. Video Watchdog, Cincinnati.

Maioli, F. (2019) ‘Morricone’s Scores for Fulci: Psychedelic Jazz in Giallo’, Soundtrack Reporter [Online]. Available at: https://soundtrackreporter.it/fulci-morricone (Accessed: 20 October 2023).

McCallum, P. (1985) ‘Dogs, Dreams, and Debauchery: The Controversy of Lizard’, Fangoria, 48, pp. 28-31.

Parolini, R. (1971) Interview with Lucio Fulci, Cine 70, Rome.

Schoell, W. (1989) Stay Tuned: The Bizarre History of Italian Exploitation Cinema. St. Martin’s Press, New York.

Thrower, E. (2018) Lucio Fulci: Godfather of Gore. FAB Press, Godalming.

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